Puente

Building 9, Room 138
Phone: (650) 381-3564
Email: mendezs@smccd.edu; valenzuelay@smccd.edu
Web: canadacollege.edu/puente/ 

The Puente Project is a national award-winning program that has improved the college-going rate of tens of thousands of California's educationally underrepresented students since 1981.

Its mission is to increase the number of educationally underrepresented students who enroll in four-year colleges and universities, earn college degrees, and return to the community as mentors and leaders to future generations. The program is interdisciplinary in approach, with writing, counseling, and mentoring components.

The Puente Program Integrates:

  • English (C1000E and 110): Students enroll with the same Puente instructor for classes over one academic year, which creates a supportive environment for students through the curriculum. The courses integrate Latino and other multicultural literature in combination with skill-appropriate scaffolding for texts that build in rhetorical and thematic complexity.
  • Personal Development (CRER 137): The Puente counselor teaches a personal development (PD) class designed to enhance the students' college success. Relevant college and career success skills, information, and resources are available to assist students in examining, planning, and setting their personal, academic, and career goals.
  • Counseling: Students are provided with academic, personal, and career counseling to prepare students to transfer to a four-year college or university. To help build the educational support network necessary for the students’ success, the counselor also integrates the students’ families into the program.
  • Mentoring: Our Puente mentors support the Puente counselor and English instructor by motivating Puente students to build the social and cultural capital they will need for their future success as college students and career professionals.
  • Transfer: Transfer information, university tours, student motivational and transfer conferences, and assistance with the transfer process.

Learning Outcome:

  • Through participation in the Puente Project, a student will develop a Student Educational Plan (SEP) with the goal to transfer to a four-year college or university.